


A Year On Earth

by artisturtle



Series: Gold Star, Gold Cross [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26707390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artisturtle/pseuds/artisturtle
Summary: She feels his lips move gently at the curve of her hair, and maybe Sam is whispering something at her but she doesn’t hear it. Far away, a voice echoes to her, calling to her like a long-lost friend, like the way it has always been between her and Rachel.More than anything, more than everything.A companion to Gold Star, Gold Cross, set a year after the last chapter. You might want to read the first part of Gold Star, Gold Cross first before reading this.
Relationships: Quinn Fabray/Noah Puckerman, Quinn Fabray/Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce, Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Sam Evans/Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce
Series: Gold Star, Gold Cross [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943608
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	A Year On Earth

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, it's Tuesday again. I have uploaded this as a different piece and not as an annex to the original Gold Star, Gold Cross because I felt like I had to stop at Chapter 31 and the subsequent stories are more or less, stand-alone but are related to the original storyline. 
> 
> Read on, friends.

Quinn steps on the brake gently so that the boxes in the backseat do not fall off, allowing the car to slow down until it stops a few meters close to the shack. She steps out of the car, surveying the space in front of her. The decrepit structure is now repaired, most of the burnt parts replaced with new wood and timber. The broken windows have been replaced, and the new door has a better paint job and a porthole. A new staircase snakes on the side of the structure, giving way to a wide, open deck on the second floor. A beech tree almost five feet high resides some yards away from the structure.

A gentle breeze blows through the quarry. Quinn closes her eyes, relishing on the feeling of nostalgia washing over her.

She jogs the close distance between her car and the shack. She climbs the stairs one step at a time. The stairs feel sturdy and her steps feel sure, unlike the ones from last year.

When she gets to the deck, she sees almost the entirety of the mudhole and the quarry beyond. There’s a conspicuous sign reading: **NO SWIMMING** just close to the shore of the mudhole. Cruel-looking barbed wires are also lining up the entry point to the mudhole, snaking up the boulder and disappearing into the hedges.

Quinn takes a deep breath. The air smells of summer and pine. She sits on the edge of the deck, her legs dangling out into the air. She looks up to the sky, the blanket of blue hurting her eyes.

Everything is the same.

And...everything is not.

"You're early," Sam hollers at her. His hands are cupped around his overly large mouth, and when he takes his hands off his face, he's grinning. He disappears from her view, and soon enough his footfalls are echoing against the hardwood stairs.

"I wanted to be alone before everyone arrives and drives each other crazy," Quinn says once Sam appears on the deck. "You know how our friends can be. Especially Santana," she says as Sam takes a seat beside her.

"This cow town's missed you, Quinn," he tells her, his right hand threading through his sandy-blonde, curtained hair.

Quinn grins. "This cow town's never been the same,” she pauses for a moment, watching as a finch flies them by. It perches on a tree branch not far from the shack and it starts singing a tune. “You fixed the shack. The burnt wall’s gone and you made it look better. Was it you with the tree?”

“It was a nice pastime to work with during the weekends,” he says with a smile, nodding at Quinn. "I made the sign and fenced the mudhole, too. But the tree’s not mine. It just popped there a couple of months after you left for New York."

Quinn looks at him, and his blue eyes hold her gaze. She knows that Sam knows what she’s itching to ask. So, she drops the pretense of making small talk and she burrows her hands into her dress pockets so she could hide how badly they’re trembling. 

“How’s Kitty?” she asks.

Sam looks at her. “Kitty’s doing well. I see her around. Not much, but I see her around town. I heard she’s going to Arizona in the fall.”

“And Finn?” she asks. 

Sam avoids her gaze, pretending to look at anything other than her eyes. He shoves his fists into the pockets of his jeans, too. “Finn was granted a plea bargain. He doesn’t get a felony charge for all that he did but he confessed guilt for assault and he just got six months of jail time. I guess they had good attorneys that’s why he was able to walk free.”

“Did he at least had to go through mandatory registration in the sex offender’s registry?”

Sam pauses as if thinking to himself. “I’m not entirely sure,” he says. “I heard from Officer Stone that it was something about having flimsy evidence so they can’t really make him go through it.”

“Just six months? I gave them my statement and Rachel’s journal and everything and...and...six months is all an entire Universe is worth?” Quinn gazes at the mudhole, her eyes full of wrath, full of thunder. The fire is back in her eyes -- it’s devouring, burning, searing everything she could land her eyes on. 

She curses the sky above her. She could dangerously feel herself skirting back to that ugly territory Dr. Sharpe and her therapist in Cornell had warned her of, and she tries so hard to calm herself down because she knows she has to get a grip on things.

The fire simmers a little when Sam’s hands clasp about her arm. “Finn’s gone. He’s just gone. No one knows why. The day after he got out of jail a few months ago, he just disappeared without a trace. Mrs. Hudson’s heartbroken. I got to asking around, but there’s no news of him. Last time I checked, he’s not even in UCLA. I’m not even going to be surprised if he turns up dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“I just want it all to end,” she almost laughs bitterly. “Being away from this town doesn't make the pain any less. It doesn’t make anything hurt any less. It doesn’t make anything any less different than it was. Does the grief ever end?”

Sam sighs. “It doesn’t end at all,” he tells her. “You just take it one day at a time. Make sure you get up each day and get through it. You live to fight another day.”

“You know, sometimes I wake up feeling like I finally got over it and then something happens and I find myself grappling at the lines again, trying to regain my balance but somehow, I always end up on the floor being broken,” Quinn tells him.

“Healing is such a shitty process and it’s not a linear one,” Sam says. “One day, you’re all good and the next day you aren’t. It doesn’t mean you are not healing, or that your value as a person any less. Maybe that’s the exact point of our days here, Quinn. We’re not here to make something big or great or something notable -- maybe we’re just here to heal for a day, over and over again. Maybe the whole point of this all is just to be and it’s okay to be not okay at times. Maybe the whole point of it all is not to fully heal but to slowly heal and nothing more, nothing less. Maybe we just need to heal, at our own pace because that’s okay, too. We don't have to be great or wonderful. We just have to be.”

Quinn gives Sam a watery smile, and she leans on his shoulder, her tears staining the fabric of his shirt. Her eyes scan the mudhole, staring at nothing in particular. “Some of us did great things, too. Wonderful, beautiful things.”

They stay quiet for a long time.

It’s long enough for her to calm down, it’s long enough for her tears to dry.

“So, how’s New York and Cornell?” Sam asks out of the blue. “Santana called last Friday night when I was at her parents' house to fix the sink plumbing, I kept hearing her say you’ve been up around the Big Apple and waddling your cute blonde butt with a certain waiter at the cafe a block from the apartment you shared.”

Quinn rolls her eyes. “God, that bitch is such a blabbermouth. And no, I am not waddling around town. And we're just friends. He's a women's rights activist, too. We met at this symposium they were holding one Saturday and he’s been working with UN Women.”

“Is that so? Santa really runs a motor mouth, I’d dare say,” Sam grins. “It was the news from her, though. Her words, not mine.”

“I’m going to stuff Brittany’s humongous cat down her throat one of these days.”

Sam lets out a booming laugh. “I’d be thrilled to see you try that.”

Sam lifts himself from where he’s sitting on the wooden floor, his eyes scanning the woodland. His smile spreads infectiously, and when he turns to Quinn, he’s grinning ear-to-ear. The unmistakable rumble of a car echoes through the woodland just beyond the mudhole. He rocks on the balls of his heels, evidently excited.

“They’re here.”

Santana’s old Jeep emerges from the line of trees. The Jeep halts close to Sam’s truck. Brittany emerges from the passenger’s side of the car just as Santana opens the driver’s door. Santana glares at the offensive afternoon sun before pulling her aviators over her eyes.

Brittany, on the other hand, waves and skips towards the two other blondes in the shack.

“Puckerman ain’t here, yet?” Santana grumbles as she shades herself under the shadow of the shack. She fans herself with her hands. “God, this heat is killing me. Where the hell is Puckerman? I’m gonna kill him if he shows up late.”

Fortunately, a soft breeze billows from the quarry and Santana soaks the air in. She sighs in relief and Brittany takes out lawn chairs from the back of the Jeep for them to sit on. Sam takes some ice-cold beer from the cooler on the back of his truck and tosses them to the girls.

“Sweet Baby Jesus, I could have married you in an instant,” Santana tells Sam as she languidly holds her hand to catch the can of beer that Sam tosses in her way. She reclines on the lawn chair as she opens the can of beer and the drink guzzles out with a fizz. “Where the fuck is Piggerman?” she bemoans again.

“Calm down babe, he’ll be here soon,” Brittany says calmly, her face hidden by a large straw hat. “For now let’s enjoy the sun and the summer,” she tells Santana, and then she proceeds to take a swig from her own can.

The grumble of a car going down the dirt path announces Puckerman’s arrival. He gives them a wave when he gets out of his car. His hair is now clean-shaven with a buzz cut, and he wears a gray shirt with the U.S. Air Force logo imprinted on the right side of his chest.

“Took you long enough, Puckhead,” Santana glowers at Puck. “When we say we meet here at seven o’clock, we mean seven o’clock. Not fucking thirty minutes later. Where the hell you’ve been anyway?”

Puck just shrugs. “You were having a good time without me, though. Besides, I had to pick up a few things at the florist since you have conveniently refused to pick them up yourself,” he stops short, hesitating at his words. “Look, I know that this is kind of our thing, but I...I invited Kitty to be with us, too.”

Everyone’s eyes turn to Quinn, and Quinn tries hard to choke down the sob. Her friends are looking at her for her approval. _The quarry had always been hers and Rachel's. Now her friends are here, too._

She nods her head slowly. Puck gives her a small smile, almost a shy one, and he jogs back to his car, retrieving a square brown box. Kitty gets out of the car as well, a similar box in her hands.

“Here,” Puck says as he sets the box on the ground. “Should we start now?”

“We should,” Sam agrees. “Sunset’s around eight-thirty something.”

“We should just carry it close to the water,” Santana says, grabbing the lightweight box off the ground, while Kitty takes the other box. “Sam can drive his truck close to the waterline. We’ll just load up everything in there.”

Sam smiles, turning to Brittany and tossing her a set of keys. “Open the gate for me, Britt. It’s near the boulder,” he says, pointing his index finger to the spot where the barbed fence snakes around the boulder. The lithe blonde dancer skips to the fence and opens it with a metallic creak.

They all load Sam’s truck with the boxes and he drives it as close to the waterline as possible. Kicking their shoes off, the boys get into the water, deep enough that their pants and their knees are soaked. Puck and Sam hold the boxes at chest level, now open thanks to Puck’s trusty pocket knife.

The girls remain in the shallower part of the water, where they let their arranged flowers anchored on buoyant floral foams. Slowly, the bouquets drift into the deeper parts of the water, their lower eaves teasing languidly at the waters. Then, the girls join the boys.

“Grab a handful,” Puck says, motioning for them to grab the sunflower petals inside the box once they got close enough.

Each of them grabs at least a handful of the petals. Quinn takes the biggest handful she could get, the petals falling between her fingers and landing into the water. She watches as the petals chase the bouquets into the watery depths.

“On three?” Santana asks once all of them had at least a handful of the sunflower petals.

Quinn nods. “On three.”

Puck smiles. “One...”

“Two...” Kitty whispers, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Three!” Quinn tosses the flower petals high into the air and it rains down on them. 

The light coming from the setting sun turns everything to gold in the most magnificent of ways, and Quinn feels the gold dust sticking on her cheeks. Something aches in her chest and there’s wetness on her eyes. It’s then that she realizes she’s crying.

A small laughter bubbles in her throat. She’s crying and she’s laughing at the same time and she’s sure that someone’s looking at her like she’s gone crazy, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t even know where the laughter starts and where the crying ends. Sam moves next to her and tosses the remaining sunflower petals out of the box, and she’s enveloped in gold dust and pollen and she dances without the music, her feet sending sprays and splashes of water.

**_Rachel is everywhere._ **

She’s all wrapped in Rachel, the stars are far into the darkness of the sky and her heart thumps wildly against her ribcage. They’re always Quinn and Rachel and they’re infinite.

“More than anything, more than everything,” she whispers to the flurry of gold around her, her hand clasped reverently between Sam’s warm hands, and she feels Sam pulling her into his chest in a warm embrace.

She feels his lips move gently at the curve of her hair, and maybe Sam is whispering something at her but she doesn’t hear it. Far away, a voice echoes to her, calling to her like a long-lost friend, like the way it has always been between her and Rachel.

**_More than anything, more than everything._ **

**(#)**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think and hit the comments box. I wish you Peace and Light. 💛


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